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Part of
Evidence for Evidentiality
Edited by Ad Foolen, Helen de Hoop and Gijs Mulder
[Human Cognitive Processing 61] 2018
► pp. 19–43

Chapter 1
Evidentiality as stance

Event types and speaker roles

| Stockholm University

This chapter argues for a view of evidentials as a type of shifter and outlines a theory of reference for evidentials that separates the configuration of the ground from the relational axis, and the alignment between ground and figure. The chapter also evaluates a proposal by Kockelman (2004) that draws on Jakobson’s notion of “event type” and Goffman’s “speaker roles” to suggest an existing analogy between “commitment events” for modals and “source events” for evidentials. The scope properties of ‘factual’ forms in both systems notably constitute a formal difference between (epistemic) modality and evidentiality that cannot be accounted for solely by the referential properties of evidentials.

Keywords: epistemic modality, figure, ground, alignment, Jakobson, modals, shifters
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.A relational theory of indexical reference
    • 2.1Referential properties of evidentials
    • 2.2Referential alignment in evidentials
    • 2.3An illustration: epistemic marking in Ika
  • 3.Modality as stance: commitment events and the role of ‘principal’
    • 3.1Event-types and speaker-roles
    • 3.2Adding commitment: Paul Kockelman’s proposal
  • 4.Evidentiality as stance: source events and the role of ‘perceiver’
    • 4.1Evidential event-types and speaker-roles
    • 4.2Scope properties of evidentials and modals
    • 4.3Embedded source events
  • 5.Summary
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.61.02ber
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